Stealing Home by Becky Wallace
Grade: C
Release date: July 9, 2019
An e-galley was provided by Page Street Kids in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Ryan Russell has life perfectly planned. If she keeps up her hard work, one day she’ll take over the family business: owning the Buckley Beavers, a minor league baseball team, and become one of the only female General Managers in the sport.
But when the newest member of the Beavers, child-phenom Sawyer Campbell, shows up, Ryan’s carefully laid plans are thrown a major curveball. Sawyer is far more charming than the arrogant jocks she usually manages, his ambition rivals her own workaholic nature—and he’s completely out of bounds. Fraternizing is against every rule in the Beaver’s handbook.
Then Ryan’s divorced parents butt heads over the future of the Beavers, and her mom plans to sell her shares to a business group known for relocating teams. If this happens, Ryan’s dreams of becoming GM disappear. In a bid to save her future, she partners with Sawyer to use his star power to draw in sponsors who will keep the team in Buckley. But the more time she spends with him, the more impossible it becomes to play by the Beaver’s rules, and she can’t afford a strikeout on the path to her dreams.
Full count with two outs, Ryan’s one pitch away from losing the whole ball game.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A lot of bloggers like to talk about how YA needs more sports books, and they definitely have a point. While I personally prefer ones about gymnasts, figure skaters, swimmers, and equestrians, I don't mind baseball ones. Mainly because I (reluctantly) grew up learning far too much about MLB. And in general, I really enjoyed the baseball angle in Stealing Home. I appreciated Ryan's passion for the sport, especially at a minor-league level.
However, the plot meandered for far too long, and most of the characters felt surface-level at best. I liked Mia, the best friend, and Ryan's dad, but Ryan's mom was a caricature, and I never felt like I got to know Ryan or Sawyer all that well. Their only interests were baseball; that's all they seemed to do, and they definitely needed more dimension than that.
However, the plot meandered for far too long, and most of the characters felt surface-level at best. I liked Mia, the best friend, and Ryan's dad, but Ryan's mom was a caricature, and I never felt like I got to know Ryan or Sawyer all that well. Their only interests were baseball; that's all they seemed to do, and they definitely needed more dimension than that.
Content warnings: Swearing was the extent of it, I think.
The Verdict: Fine, but not great.
Will I be adding this book to my library?: No.
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